On July 9, 2002, the third album of the band "Hayehudim" was released.
We will mention at every opportunity that we are total groupies, yes, like 16-year-olds in everything related to this band but if so we must be honest about the music and with ourselves.
This album came out about 4 years after the album "Hayehudim" (bearing the band name) which smashed the second album syndrome and brought us exploding songs like "Sami Free", "Age of God", "Help Me", "Intermeth" and of course "Theft" and also emotional songs like "Could Be", "Drop in the Sea", "Fly" and of course the amazing and immortal "Sometimes", in short, a perfect album !!!
This album was also released 5 years before the heavy, killer, gilded, and so-anticipated "Forte", an album that lifted the band several notches up, really really close to Olympus with songs like "You Have No Place", "Here It Comes", "New York City", "Even when not crying", "Can not do otherwise" and of course "What About You" that reveals the gladiatorial power of this crazy band !!!
So our album is basically a "sandwich child", between the older child, the leader, the adult that everyone compliments, and between the young child, the little one that everyone cares about, who goes after and pampers him. A sandwich kid who didn’t really get attention, didn’t go into details, and let grow and develop on his own. Yes, they are all here, Orit Shahaf, Tom Petrover, Yahav, Avi Stroll, Yiftach Shahaf, and Mittelman. The sound is here too, the strong distortions, the inconceivable intensities in the couple's singing but... but something here is not polished enough, something is missing.
Although on this album the songs are much longer than on the previous albums, there are even more English songs here than on the previous albums, it seems like the band tried to go further on the road but something there got lost along the way.
Apart from the immortal and mesmerizing songs that are to this day in the band's setlist like “War Bell”, “Fall”, “Another Place” and of course “Twentieth Century” the other songs on the album are missing.
We feel they lack the synchronicity, harmony, and flow that so characterizes the band, as if the members went beating each other in the studio and didn't really flow with each other ideas (it's just our feeling, not something we know).
Take for example the "Amen" which sounds tired and heavy, even though the band has songs like that, it manages to stretch over almost 6 minutes. The song "Oh Lord" which sounds like a huge potential, throws you into the grunge area with an excellent rhythm of drums and riffs but sounds like it was taken from a demo recording of a band at the beginning of its journey. The song "Now You" feels as if there is no harmonic dynamic in the sound of the guitar, with the drums and vocals. We will stop here because it really hurts us to write these lines, we love everything about this band but it is less so. Even the less good songs have some buds that do kindness like "At the End, You Cry" and "Somewhere Else." We want to believe that this is an album that the band had to release to progress and mature into an album that came out later.
(Photo: Avihai Levy)
After this album, the "Hayehudim" underwent a significant change in the lineup when Iftach Shahaf left and was replaced by two huge guitarists, Daniel Brecher and Guy Be'er. This comes out significantly in the sound and dynamics of the album "Forte" where you feel the leap made by the band.
This is the first album in which Orit Shahaf started painting the album cover and the design of the inner booklet.
Listen to the album on: Spotify, Apple Music